Common Council - Regular Meeting

Good. That's fine. Yes.

Good evening and welcome to the Monday, August 10th, 2026 meeting of the Martinsville Common Council, meeting is hereby called to order. At this time, if you would please stand for tonight's invocation of the main standing for our pledge. Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you for the opportunity to come together this evening. We pray that you be with us and guide us as we discuss business for the city of Martinsville. And as we discuss the items on our agenda, Lord, we pray that you help us to realize how blessed we are to be able to come together openly and have these conversations. We thank you for loving us, and we thank you for the guidance that you give us. In your name we pray, amen. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Mr. Mayor, please call the roll. John Badger. Present. Susie Lips. Present. Ben Mahan. Present. Josh Barron. Present. Ann Miller. Present. Jonathan Collier. Present. Bill Deckert II. Present. Mayor, we have a quorum.

Thank you. Prior to tonight's meeting, you each received the minutes from the Monday, July 27th meeting. Are there any questions or comments on those minutes?

I make a motion that we accept the minutes as presented.

I'll second. It's been a motion made and seconded to approve the minutes as presented this evening. All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed, no. Motion passes. Likewise, you received the claims to review prior to tonight's meeting. Are there any questions or comments for the claims?

Again, Ann Miller makes a motion that we approve the claims as presented. Second.

It's been a motion made and seconded to approve the claims as presented this evening. All in favor say aye. Aye. If there's none, the motion carries. Pouring into new business, we have a report again from the clerk's office. Mr. Murray.

So Mrs. Polson is going to actually do the presentation tonight. So as promised to the council, we're going to be doing a monthly update of each area that we cover as an office. Last time, Stacey Williams did that on accounts receivable. Terry is going to be doing that tonight on accounts payables and your appropriations. So Terry's been with us for a little over 20 or 20 years, 12 years. She started back when she was 29 years old. So she's been with us for 12 years now.

Okay. Well, I was going to introduce myself. I had this really good speech. Oh, go ahead.

Yeah, go ahead. For those of you that may not know me, my name is Terry Polston, and I am the accounts payable clerk at the Clerk Treasurer's Office. Any questions? No, I'm just kidding. I'm basically here to give you a review of the day in the life of a claim, how it starts, the middle part, and the end. Basically, claims start off with our great yearly budget. We all know and love those workshops that we get to go to where we sit down and our people have come together to find out what they may need for the next year and so we can get their money available. Once the claim, or the, it takes me just a second here, once the budget has been approved, then those funds are divided into what we call appropriations. Now, appropriations also have guidelines. An appropriation starts, we'll just do MVH. It starts with 2201, which is the fund. The 012 is the department, which is MVH. And then the last three digits is where we can take items from. If it's in the 100s, it's normally a salary item. If it's in the 200s, it's a supply. If it's in the 300, I really do know this, if it's in the 300s, it's usually contractual services. And normally, if there's a 400 at the end of it, that is something that goes through like a capital outlay, something that we're going to build or whatever. So that's how it's kind of broken down. Now, here's how it happens. Our departments will go purchase something. They send their invoice to me, which I turn into a claim. But before that can become a claim, whoever they've chosen to do business with, I have to have a W-9. I also have to have, depending on what they're doing for our city, I have to have a certificate of insurance. So if they're doing a job where it may require like tearing something down or putting something back up, then I have to have a certificate of insurance so if something goes wrong, we know they have insurance to back it up. If they don't have that, they're not supposed to do anything. These are really, really important items that I have to have. I don't like being a grouch about it, but I will call you till, till you go home after supper, and then I'll text you. I have to have those items. I just do. It's very important. Other than that, there's just, like I said, everyone turns them in to me. I have some invoices that come to me electronically. We are just now starting to pay some stuff online. That's a good one. But I handed out these little packets just so you could have a little bit of information how things run. And if you have any questions, I would be happy to answer. And basically, that's the way everything goes. They're turned in. They come to my desk. Now, I will tell you that when a claim is turned in to me, where that claim is going to be taken out of is already on there. That is not my decision. I cannot make that decision. I have to call whomever has turned that claim in and say, okay, where do you want me to take it from? Because I cannot make that decision. So once it gets to me, if they decide to take the phone bill out of the capital outlay, I can call them and suggest they can't do that, but that's not my decision. Now, sometimes I have to go in the big towns, but sometimes you have to do that if someone is definitely trying to take something out of the line item that really shouldn't be taken out of it. But normally that's not my decision.

Does anybody have any questions? And so what happens after we approve the claims?

Once you approve the claims, then they come back to me once everything's signed. And then now, through our new process of where we're sending the checks out to a third party, I send them through the process of being paid. Before, I printed all the checks out, stuck them in the envelopes, put stamps on them now. But now, with this new system, I basically go into the computer and get them set and ready, and I send them off. Anything else?

Do you find that the electronic is more beneficial for you and helpful to you compared to the... Can we talk about this later?

I'm just kidding.

I'm going to be honest. When it was first brought to me, I am not a big, I don't like change very well. So I was like dragging my feet all the way across the floor.

It's like, I don't understand.

I do this all the time. I've been doing it for 12 years. I know it at all. But once we got started with it and you can see, The efficiency of it is like, man, why weren't we doing this a few years ago? So, you know, there's good and bad in everything that we try. This so far has turned out to be, I feel like, a very good service. I really like it. Anything else? No? Well, if you don't have any more questions, you didn't find anything.

First item on the agenda tonight is First Reading, Ordinance 2026-1920, Ordinance Repealing Chapter 66. Mr. Coffey.

So as we talked a couple months ago, we're in the process of going through our ordinances to see what might need to be cleaned up, what might need to be repealed, what don't apply anymore. And we found an old ordinance on open burn that we used to have here in the city. Actually, it's still in the books. But it's been replaced by the new fire ordinance that we implemented a couple years ago under Chapter 38 of the Municipal Code. So the old one, which is Chapter 66, Article 2, Section 37, needs to be repealed as it's been superseded by Chapter 38 of the New Municipal Code. So this is the first reading on that. There was some discrepancies involved in the wording of both of those. So the new one should apply, and just asking you to take a look at that, if you get a chance, and we'll address this on second reading two weeks from now.

Any questions for Mr. Coffey at this time? I do have one. So it looks like the one pertaining to open burn is that Chapter 38, Article 10, Division 1, Section 38-283. Is that the one that's kind of...

the that one was the one pertaining to the open burning chapter 38 is the new one was in the yeah it's in chapter 38 that is the new uh i say new it's been about two years ago that the council put in a new comprehensive fire ordinance

So we're getting, we're dropping chapter 66 and keeping the chapter 38 one? That's correct. So chapter 66 when looking at it I felt was more straightforward kind of than chapter the 38 one. Do you know why we're switching to the chapter 38 because it had a lot more

It has a lot more, mainly it has a lot more penalty provisions under the Chapter 38 than we had under Chapter 66. So if someone violates it, we now have the ordinance that controls what the penalties are for that and what the fines are. Thank you.

Okay. If nothing else, this next item is the first reading of ordinance 2026-1921 established in Maple Hills PUD. Mr. Coffey, do you want to say anything on this before we ask Cheyenne to come forward?

The only thing I'll add is that this came before the plan commission that they're meeting July, and it was approved unanimous vote. So we have a representative from Four Star Hill this evening, Cheyenne Hoffa, to introduce this for you.

Good evening, Mayor Koston and Common Council. I appreciate your time this evening to hear first reading of the proposed Maple Hills PUD ordinance. I have a PowerPoint here. I think you guys already have it, though. So I wanted to introduce ourselves. I know you've seen me a couple times in the last few weeks. So I'm Cheyenne Hoffa. I'm the entitlements manager with Four Star Group. Four Star Group is a residential land developer. We're not a home builder. We develop residential lots and sell them to a variety of homeowners throughout Indianapolis and the larger United States. You know us from Hannah Farms is the neighborhood that we have developed in Martinsville so far, which has been a great community that we are building with Arbor Homes is the home builder there. This new site we brought through annexation way back in December of last year. And at that time, when you saw the site plan, there was access onto 252. So the site plan has changed. We are now having an entrance proposed off of State Road 44 to the north and no entrance onto State Road 252. I heard a lot of concerns about that entrance onto 252 and even driving it myself, I definitely see that those concerns were valid so we've worked with faith church to the north to purchase a portion of their ground to give us access up to 44 so in total the site is going to be about 74.2 acres the roadway on faith church will not have any homes it'll just be kind of a thoroughfare to get down to our neighborhood the retention pond up front But it gives us access back to this really beautiful site with rolling hills that has a lot of existing trees around the site. We're proposing 159 lots, 50 foot wide lots. So if you're thinking about Hannah Farms, there's two lot sizes there. This is the larger of those two lot sizes. These lots will all be one size at 50 foot wide. I have some home elevations from our two largest home building partners. So DR Horton is actually a majority stock owner of Four Star Group. So they develop on the majority of our lots. And so I have some elevations proposed from them as well as Arbor Homes as they're already building in Hanna Farms. They also have great interest in this site. So you typically are... going to contract with the builder around the time that we start construction, so we're still a few months off on that if we would be approved before we determine who that home builder would be. But whether it's Horton, Arbor, or another home builder, they would have to follow the text of the PUD. And working with Mayor Koston and staff, we have also upped some of the brick requirement for these homes. So to kind of give this an upper, make it feel like a little bit of a higher scale neighborhood than Hannah Farms. It also has... really great opportunities for lot premiums because of the wooded area that surrounds the exterior of the site. So that really helps in terms of, you know, boosting those home prices because they have a lot premium with those opportunities. So there's, though these lots are all 50 foot wide, The PUD text still does allow for a 30-foot-wide home, which would be like what you're seeing on the 40-foot lots, the arrival series that Arbor is building there. However, again, those lots will have to have brick on the front, and half of them will have to have a wainscot around the entirety of those smaller homes. And then the larger homes will have to have, 50% of them will have to be at least 50% brick. Those remaining will have to have the brick wings on the front of those homes. As a residential land developer and not a home builder, we try to cast a wide net. Arbor has had great success with the arrival series. They were really proud of it. You know, this was kind of their groundbreaking for that product line, and they invited planners from around the state to come and see it down here in Martinsville. They have not confirmed that they would do the arrival series on these 50 foot wide lots, but we like to try to leave some flexibility for our home builder partner when they've had such success down here with those lots. This community will be maintained by an HOA. There will be a playground. That front pond will have a fountain, kind of as a nice entry feature into the neighborhood. But I am open to any questions that you guys might have. I know I'll be back here in a few weeks, but open to any questions. And my contact information is also included in the application if you have some in the meantime between then and now.

Did you come to an agreement with the Allens as far as fencing?

So looking through the UDO, the barbed wire fence is not going to be allowed per city ordinance to be built. At planned commission we had a neighbor that is adjoining to the woods to the west. there on our western property line that had some concerns and was seeking a barbed wire fence between properties we would not be seeking to build a barbed wire fence but we would be willing to put up signage that would indicate you know no trespassing and etc there are some homes on that state road 252 lane that back up to the woods that they own that not protected by a barbed wire fence or anything like that so that is what we've offered to the council and to the property owners there um but if a barbed wire fence is just not something that i think that would get approved by the city or something that we'd like to put on our property line in the rear of those homes so we're just talking about signage then signage how long either Most likely it would probably follow the wood line and not be at our actual property line that would be within the wood line. But yes, signage is what we are offering at this time.

I have a question in regards to, so you said you're not sure yet if they're going to do two different types of housing styles? It's not been confirmed yet?

It's not been confirmed. The PUD allows for that. So no, it could be a mix of them all. What I would probably see if I were the home builder, the exterior lots as those larger home plans and the interior lots that back up to one another as the smaller lots or the smaller home product, the lot size will be the same. So if it is the smaller home, the lot will be the same and then they'll just be a larger lot that are on there.

Do you know off the top of your head the side setbacks for like the Hanna Farms areas? Are they also five feet?

Yep, they're also five feet. So that follows along similar to the Hanna Farms PUP with that five foot side yard setback.

With the preliminary of the upper portions of the house being vinyl?

Yes, so the remaining home building material would be vinyl. We, again, worked with Mayor Costa and town staff to give a thickness of that vinyl to make sure that it's not just the typical 90s vinyl that I think a lot of people think of when they think of a vinyl home and the holes in the siding where the rock hits it from the mower and et cetera. So we've agreed to some thicker vinyl hopefully quell those concerns that we've had.

Gotcha. Would there be any interest of potentially increasing the setbacks, the side setbacks to say 10 feet? Because I feel like five is pretty narrow.

The five foot is like from the home to the property life. So between homes is 10 feet. So as of right now, we're seeking five feet. I think the ordinance is six feet is the minimum. I had a cheat sheet last time on Sierra and I do not have it with me tonight of the difference between the UDO and your ordinance. I know we've talked, part of the reason that we did not, we were interested in proposing 40 foot lots on a portion of this site and speaking with the mayor and as well as the staff from the fire department, their largest concern was with those 40 foot lots, that they did not like those, they did not want to see any more of those because of their concern of fire. So they were not concerned. with the 50 foot lots even though the side yard setback is the same so that's kind of how we landed here to try to well the concerns was to remove those 40 foot wide lots which i think just kind of puts more massing you know you have more density so more opportunity for you know hopefully one house doesn't catch and then you know those around it to have less of those around but that's how we landed on the five foot side yard setback there so there will be not be any 50 foot only 40 and 30. no so the home product will be 40 foot wide because the lot is 50 foot five yard on each side so the maximum width of the home will be 40 feet wide on a 50 foot wide lot and so the lot size will be 50 foot throughout the community the home product size can go down to 30 feet wide if so you know so you're using both builders that correct no so we're we're not sure whether the builder will be typically like hannah farms is a good example of what would be designed kind of more as a two builder neighborhood, even though only one builder is building there, kind of a two product line neighborhood. So this one will most likely be one builder because it's one lot size with one entrance. We have interest from DR Horton Arbor and a few other home builders. We have some contractual obligations to DR Horton in terms of offering those lots to them first. In my crystal ball, I see it either being DR Horton or Arbor on these lots, but we don't go to contract until closer to when we close on the ground.

And are these the specific, it looks like they've got four examples of the 30 and four of the 40. These are the ones they're going to be using?

Yeah, so the only one that I would say, just the picture itself is on page seven here, Maple Hills proposed 30-foot product, DR Horton. the two that are catty-cornered to each other but don't have any brick on the front, those would be required to have that brick wainscot on the front of those. But otherwise, yes, these are the proposed product for both Horton and Arford.

Thank you.

You did say that you did speak with the fire department and they expressed confidence that the 10 feet apart would be sufficient enough for any wind gusts or anything about that?

They felt comfortable with the 50 foot lot and the 10 foot aggregate side here except back there.

I was going to ask Mac, do we currently have sewer, water and sewer running out to that? Yes, across the highway. Go underneath. Near where the cell tower is. Today they broke ground. Extending that water and sewer. Of course, it can only go to their property. And it depends on what you all do. Then it runs from there. We are extending that approximately 2,200 linear feet in water and sewer. And the nice thing, the mayor was able to use a grant. So it's not going to cost you a penny. Thank you.

And then that sewer is a forced main, so we would be building a lift station on site to serve the site with that extended forced main sewer.

And Shaina, I think if you would explain, like on page, I'll call it 11 in your booklet here, how you're not going to have duplicate houses.

Oh, yes. I'm sorry.

I think that's important.

Yeah. As part of the... Plan Commission favorable approval in the PUD text page 11, exhibit C. We've included some anti-monotony standards. help ensure that the same house with the same color is not built right next to each other so this gives some requirements to the home builder to break that up that you know the homes in the vicinity of you know six three lots on each side and across the street that they don't have the same color and floor plan for an elevation there so that it kind of helps with the the streetscape being a little bit more diverse, which is fairly common in a lot of municipalities that I've seen, so we were more than happy to add that to our community text.

One more question, kind of touching on what Councilman Collier said, is the fire department, do they seem like they're okay with just the one entrance?

Yes, so we've talked with the fire department again as we indicated last time, and originally we're on 252 and so we've moved up to 44 and if you see that the entrance is boulevarded throughout and that is what the solution that we've come to with the fire department so that if one lane is blocked then there's another separate lane that has the median that will be planted and maintained by the HOA that gives them that kind of secondary access even though it's one road. Good question, I apologize for not touching on that.

Mayor, okay, so since the Planning Commission has happened, so what has come down to between the Allens property and the property for the Maple subdivision? It's just going to be signs?

Well, I have to be careful how I say this. The Allen property is not city limits. This Maple Hills is city limits, and if they decide to put signs up, that's their prerogative. If Allen's want a fence on it, that would be up to them. In my opinion, and Councilor may be wrong, but that's, you know, asking them to put a barbed wire fence up is a little extreme.

So that would be on the Allens to do that.

Our city ordinance does not allow barbed wire to be used. It's certainly a liability issue. And the Planning Commission did not make that a condition of their recommendation to the council. So, but, yeah, if the Allens who are actually in the county would like to put a fence up, then that's up to them, I suppose, as long as they follow the county ordinance.

What bothers me is that the Allens do hunt on their property, as they stated in the Planning Commission meeting. And that's a little worrisome to me, with them hunting on their property. When I agreed to approve this, I was thinking that there would be some sort of fencing.

But if you're hunting, and I'm not hunting for many years, so... But you're always mindful, are there any houses or anything? And just because you put up a fence, and if I shoot that way, that fence isn't going to stop my bull.

You have to have so many feet from it and can't shoot in that direction, so they still have to follow the laws. So even though they're going to hunt, you're still even hunting the country, you still have to abide by the laws and footage and the direction you aim and shoot from the roadway. And that all applies everywhere. It would be no different than anywhere else.

Have we discussed with Washington Township Fire Department on any of this? Because this is in the city, this new proposed subdivision. But theoretically, I mean, this is almost right across the street from Washington Township's Fire Department. So the city of Martinsville would still be first and responsible for the fire for this? Yes. Got it.

But it's, you know, most of us mutual aid, you know, so nine times out of ten, we're both going to be there together. I'd like to thank Councilman, Mr. Darnell, for adding the part about the repetition of the colors. We really appreciate that.

Okay. If there's no further questions for Cheyenne here, again, this is just the first reading. We'll have a second reading at our next meeting. Thank you, Cheyenne.

Thank you a lot.

Thank you. Any comments from the council this evening?

I'm just happy to see, I'd like to applaud the park for having their splash pad open until closing time. Is that correct? That's really good. I'm glad to see that, especially with this hot weather. It's very nice.

Any comments from the public?

if not sandy you've come up with a date when we're going to have a special meeting for the planning commission correct for the training workshop it will be september 22nd at 5 30 and i encourage the council members the planning commission and the bca members to be there we want it to be well attended ka is She wrote the book on planning and zoning. She's one of the top people in the state. She is going to have the training workshop. She is retiring, so we're kind of lucky to be able to get her at such a late notice, but she is going to come in and hopefully we'll learn, everyone will learn something extra.

And she was here, what, two, three years ago? It's very instrumental and very educational. So again, I just bring it up so the council knows September 22nd at 530 if you could spare a couple hours to be well worth your time so that way you know kind of what the planning commission, what their role in all of this is. Next regular meeting will be on Monday, August 24th, 7 o'clock here in the chambers. We are adjourned. Thank you.